Boundaries and Expectations, Part 2 of 2

In this episode, Kristina and Heather, both clinical social workers, continue their conversation on boundaries and expectations, diving deeper into the art of setting realistic expectations for kids. They explore the balance between encouraging effort and managing perfectionism, and the crucial role of clear, consistent boundaries. The conversation uncovers the power of natural consequences—and why they work better than imposed ones—while stressing the importance of following through. Kristina and Heather share personal stories on navigating a child’s perfectionism, and even how to handle those moments when a child forgets something at school. They also touch on the importance of body language, empathy, and giving kids choices. Tune in to hear insights on setting developmentally appropriate expectations and the challenges (and rewards) of being a consistent role model as a parent.

Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood is recorded and edited by Dave Purnell and produced by Jen Plante Johnson for the ODC Network in Holland, Michigan.

The ODC Network is a non-profit organization that strives to advance outdoor education and conservation in West Michigan.

Since 2000, The ODC Network has served over a million people through hands-on, outdoor learning experiences and conserved thousands of acres of native habitat through restoration and preservation projects.

The ODC Network’s vision is building a better community by connecting people, land and nature. To learn more and get involved go to: www.odcnetwork.org.

Transcript

Episode 8: Boundaries and Expectations, Part 2 of 2

Kristina  00:00

In this episode, we continue our conversation about boundaries and expectations, focusing on the importance of setting realistic expectations for our children. 

Heather  00:11

We explore finding the balance between encouraging effort and not demanding perfection, especially for children with perfectionistic tendencies.

Kristina  00:19

We talk about setting clear, consistent boundaries, and the importance of having developmentally appropriate expectations. We'll share some ways we establish these for our kids in our homes.

Heather  00:30

We also discuss the impact of body language and non-verbal cues on children, the importance of empathy, offering choices and setting good examples. 

Kristina  00:40

We wrap up by reminding ourselves how important it is to follow through with consequences and the benefits of natural consequences over imposed ones. Easier said than done. Right?

Heather  00:50

Absolutely. Welcome to Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood.

Kristina  01:00

A podcast where we explore the struggles and challenges we all face as parents. We'll share ideas and offer tips and strategies for raising happy, healthy children. My name's Kristina Boersma,

Heather  01:13

And I'm Heather Bouwman. Kristina and I are clinical social workers who've been working with families and children for a good long minute. We're support service directors for the Early Childhood network of ODC Network in Holland, Michigan, and we get to support parents and children as they navigate the tricky terrain of raising children and growing up in today's world. 

Kristina  01:35

We're here to help unpack the hard stuff and connect with the joy of parenting.

Heather  01:41

Are you ready?

Heather and Kristina  01:41

Let's hit the trails.

Heather  01:47

This project is made possible by the ODC Network, an amazing nonprofit organization based in Holland, Michigan where we get to work supporting preschool age students, their teachers and their parents.

Kristina  01:59

The ODC Network is all about nurturing the community and the next generation through a wide variety of innovative nature-based initiatives. 

Heather  02:08

Please visit www.ODCNetwork.org to learn more about the ODC Network's mission and impact. So let's talk about expectations. I feel like in our home, we held pretty high expectations. It was also our value that your best was always good enough, right? But we expected your best. And I think it's tricky as kids grow too sometimes you know you want your expectations to be high enough that they have to work a bit. They have to have some grit. We're trying to build resilience. We want them to be problem solvers, at least we did in our home, right? We want them to not give up so quickly. We want them to work enough at it, but also still be successful, because, like we said, if children can't be good at succeeding, they can get tempted to be good at failing. So how do you feel? In your home you held those expectations to a standard.

Kristina  03:18

I love “your best is always good enough.” If you have a child who tends to be perfectionistic, I come at that a little differently. So that was my Grace. Things were never the way that she envisioned them to be, right? Her drawings never turned out the way she had envisioned them. 

Heather  03:39

What she was going for, when they can't get out their hand what they see in their mind, I feel like that's a whole training ground, right? There it is.

Kristina  03:47

And so for Grace, for whom that perfectionism is part of who she is, it's also part of my nurturing, which I need to own, which comes out of my own perfectionism. But for Grace, I would often say, “Reasonable amount of time. Reasonable effort. And then we move on.” So it wasn't a “I have to crumple up the paper. I have to do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over, because it's not looking the way I want it to look, and I'm getting so frustrated about it, right?”

Heather  04:19

Because that's wanting to achieve perfection. Yes, whatever she saw in her mind. Yep, I remember Ava verbalizing to me, ‘Why can you draw so good? And I'm not good at it at all?” I'm like, ‘Sweetheart. I am at that time, I was like, 40, so I'm like, sweetheart. I am, like, way older than you. My hand is fully developed. It might have arthritis. I got all the bones I need in my hand, like it's all developed. You're just this little person who's just getting there, like you are just perfecting how to hold this pencil.” But she wanted to be able to draw. Now, as a parent, did I dumb down my drawing? No, I just explained to her the why behind it. “You’re going to get there. And in fact, practice is going to make you better. And if you just chuck the colored pencil across the room, that doesn't get us better, right? Maybe it feels good in the moment, but I do see that you're frustrated.”

Kristina  05:12

So what can we do when we feel frustrated? That's again, this teaching of how do you cope? How do you move through that? So it's determining, as a parent, who your child is, and is it the “we expect your best,” or is it the “we expect a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable effort,” because you have the child who whose paper is never done, because they can always edit and rewrite it one more time to make it better.

Heather  05:44

In our home, we interpreted that to be that we don't demand perfection. We expect your best effort, and if that's what's produced from your best effort, that's good enough. Doesn't have to be perfect. Doesn't have to be what you saw in your mind. But if you gave your best effort, not asking you to do it seventeen times. We asked for a best effort. What they do with it in the midst of it is the coachable stuff, yes.

Kristina  06:11

So really, again, you're on that quest of determining and growing in the knowledge of who your child is and how to hold that expectation in an appropriate place where they have the skills to meet the expectation. Each child develops at their own pace, right? So it's not helpful to say to a child, “Oh, any twelve year old can do that. I mean, for crying out loud, you're twelve.” That helps no one. That brings shame. It's not taking a look to see does this child have the skills to meet this expectation?

Heather  06:47

It erodes their self esteem and confidence in themselves. It becomes their inner voice.

Kristina  06:52

And now all of a sudden, you're not their safe caregiver that they're attached to. It's somebody who's actually on the other side of the table, right? You're not good enough. You do not measure up. There's something wrong. 

Heather  07:05

With an adversary versus ally relationship, we always want to be their ally, right?

Kristina  07:09

And when we're not, we need to do everything we can to get back to that side of the table. Same team. And own what we've done that took us to the other side, right? I apologize a lot to my daughter. And because she is gracious and loving, she will often say, “Mommy, it's okay, it's okay, it's fine.” And she, even as a pre -teen and young teenager, said things like, “Oh, Mommy, you were tired. You were frustrated.” I love the empathy. The Empathy is beautiful. She's very empathetic. But it doesn't mean then, if I've behaved poorly, that that's just okay, right? So, using those same skills that we were talking about in helping our child express “I didn't like it when you…”, I can say “I didn't like it when I spoke this way to you.  It didn't feel good to me. I imagine it didn't feel good to you. How can I make that better? Next time I will” and modeling the same thing we're asking our children to do in their interactions with others. And that we ask them to do that.

Heather  08:14

Yeah, right. When they speak poorly to us, we're going to go through that same process with them and walk them through that. As our kids grew, one of our primary rules, because we had three of them, was if you asked Mom or Dad anything, a request “Could so and so, come over?” and you didn't get the answer you wanted, you could not then go ask the other parent. That was a big one for us. And that was a real hard boundary that we set. And if they crossed that boundary and did that and went to the other parent, it was like mandatory family meeting. Butts in seats. We’re gonna talk this through.

Kristina  09:00

They are not going to play us against each other.

Heather  09:03

No, and that goes back to your foundations again. Of this needs to be a place where we can trust each other that's built in honesty. And our rule is, if you ask mom and she doesn't give you the answer, you don't get to run on over to dad and try again. Nope.

Kristina  09:23

And I mean, they ask us questions a thousand times a day, right? So it's not always reasonable to be able to say, “Let me ask whomever my wife, let me ask my partner. Let me ask somebody else about that before I give the answer.” Because oftentimes, as parents, we don't have the whole story, right? It'll be like, oh, here come, you know, Vince and Grace trucking into the kitchen, and they're headed out to get donuts in the morning. And there was actually a task that I had given earth that needed to be completed before she could do those things. But he didn't know that, and she thought, I have struggled here. That's right, we're going for a donut to Donutville.  Like, it doesn't get better than that right? So it's also when you can check in or saying, you know, Vince, saying, “Oh, I didn't realize you had to get that done first. First, complete the task, then we can go for donuts.” 

Heather  10:13

And it's also, like, it just gets busy. I'm in the house. I'm doing things. It's a Saturday. There are kids ramming around everywhere. He's in the garage or doing lawn work. He's outside, doing stuff out there. The kids want to have more kids over, and maybe I'm at my brink, and I don't want that, but my husband doesn't realize that. So the kids are like, “Ooh, Dad's outside. He'll monitor us. I'll ask him instead. Mom said ‘no,’ but I'll go ask him.” Nope. Not how it works, and they needed to be taught like that does erode our relationship. That is not what we want. We want to have a good marriage. We want to always be your parents. We want to be a family forever. And that puts a crack in our foundation. 

Kristina  10:57

That behavior right there? You asked. I answered. It is done. Yep,

Heather  11:01

Yep. Exactly. Another thing - and this goes back to how old is the child? Is it a reasonable ask? And for how long when you're in a conversation, maybe after a soccer game or a ball game or whatever, and the adults are gathering and we're in a conversation, and the child comes up and wants to interrupt. Interrupting was one of those things that I wanted to teach my children not to do. I wanted them to wait and then move in appropriately when the time was correct. But if you're in a group of people, it can be really hard for them. So our rule was, when they were little, if they just came up and they put their hand on my leg or my arm that signaled that they had something that they needed to say to me, and what I would do in that moment is turn to them, acknowledge them, and give them the one minute, like just one minute, hold up one finger.

Kristina  11:53

And that needs to be a minute, not, well, that's sometimes referred to as a “mother's minute,” which can be twenty minutes long.

Heather  11:59

Because that's an unreasonable expectation. And it erodes their trust in you. Because if you tell them “one minute,” then at the very least you need to say just “one second, folks. Here, you've been very patient. Thank you for waiting so well. What can I help you with?” and acknowledge that, and then who knows what it might be? “Okay, I hear you. We're gonna let me finish up here. I'll be five minutes, and then we'll dot, dot, dot…” whatever it might be. But you need to at least acknowledge and like you said, it can't be twenty minutes. Because no four year old in the history of the world can wait twenty minutes without interrupting. They just can't do it. Probably even a six or eight year old can't do that for twenty minutes. 

Kristina  12:51

For crying out loud, I can't do that for twenty minutes. When there's something I'm really needing to do or really, really wanting to do, it's hard to be patient like that.

Heather  12:59

So let's recap boundaries and expectations. We want to have clear rules and expectations that are rooted in our family values and what we want to teach

Kristina  13:13

Yes. We want there to be few but important, very intentional boundaries, fences that we have erected, they can't be everywhere, but we need to choose them carefully based on those values, and then we need to say our expectations out loud. What do we expect? What happens if that boundary is breached? Correct?

Heather  13:38

We also need to have developmentally appropriate expectations, because our kids start real, real little with developing brains that have not a lot of skill and capacity. And then, as they grow, they gain more skill. Hopefully, because we've taught them and they gain more capacity, right?

Kristina  14:01

And that if a child is exhibiting maladaptive behavior, it is most often because we have set an expectation they are not able to meet. They do not have the skills to meet it. If it's an expectation that they have previously been able to meet, then we move into being the detective of our home and searching for the “why this child not able to meet this expectation at this time, in this moment?” because there is a reason. If they could do it before, and they can't do it now. And so it's striking what we think as a parent, using a good sound judgment, is the perfect balance of challenging them enough and stretching them enough, but still allowing them to be successful. Yes. And building the skill. Every interaction in a day is an opportunity to either model or build skill. Now I'd be exhausted if I took every opportunity in the day to do those things, but there are plenty, and our children need us to model and teach them the skills to be able to manage life when they don't get their way, when they're met with frustration, when they're disappointed, when they're not sure how to communicate, when they don't yet have the pause. 

Heather  15:25

And let's talk about being firm and consistent, because we're only as good as our reliability and our consistency. And that can trip us up, because it can be so tempting to move that fence for lots of different reasons, lots of reasons, but our consistency is really what matters here, because that's what goes back to being clear. And we say ‘clear is kind.’ And clear really is kind when we can be consistent and our kids know exactly what to expect, it goes so much better.

Kristina  16:03

Yeah. And it's important that if a child is kicking the fence right? We don't let it go over. But it may give us pause to reflect on the boundary. It may be: it's time for that boundary to move. I remember this with my daughter with bedtime. She had the same bedtime for a long time, and then she started kicking the fence right like “I want to stay up later. Everybody gets to stay up later. I'm not tired yet.” Kick, kick, kick, kick. And we held firm: “This is your bedtime. This is when you're headed up. I can't tell you when you're going to fall asleep, but I can tell you when we're headed up to bed.” So after she kicked the fence a number of times, it was time for her father and I to sit down and say, “Hmm, maybe it is time to move that fence.” And so then to be able to say to her, “We've decided that now at this age, this will be the new bedtime,” and that's keeping it developmentally appropriate and not responding to the kick in the moment, but reflecting on the boundary.

Heather  17:01

That’s a really important distinguishing factor. What we say matters. How we say it. It also really matters our body language. I don't remember the exact statistic, but what kids, especially young children, interpret first, is not our words, it's how our face looks. It's how our body is moving. They assess all of that.

Kristina  17:27

Children have been studying our faces their whole lives. That's how they initially began to understand, am I safe? Am I not safe? Are my needs going to be met? Are they not before they ever have language.

Heather  17:41

Our faces and our reactions like impulse, action, reaction, right? So they know by looking at us if we're angry, if we're frustrated, there doesn't have to be any words coming out, and they will know we have this with co-workers. We have this as adults with one another. It's very true, but children have only had that to rely on with their primary caregivers since they were born, since they were born before they were verbal. So they are experts at knowing what gets us going, what makes us angry, what causes us to react, and so it's really important when we're holding those consistent boundaries, and when we are setting up and clearly communicating the rules and expectations that how we say things is so important to their interpretation of the what we just have to remain as parents, so aware of our facial expressions in our body language, because that is 90% of communication to kids. Am I foe, or am I friend?

Kristina  18:59

Am I ally? Am I adversary? Am I here to help, or am I here to punish? 

Heather  19:04

And we notice this so much in the setting that we work in, because we're not primary caregivers, right? And so we have to very quickly move into what could be an escalated situation and bring the calm down and immediately have that child trust us, right? To be able to approach them. And what that looks like for us is getting real low, reall low, letting our face soften very, very much and be able to say to them, “I'm here to help” and pause if something has happened

Kristina  19:40

Right. In a low tone of voice, not in a “Hey, hey, hey, what's happening here?” That doesn't help the children want to be helped by you.

Heather  19:49

It doesn't mean there aren't times that we don't have to raise our voice and say, “Stop your feet” because we don't want them to go near the pond or whatever it might be. For safety reasons, we have to do those things too, but in those moments where we're trying to communicate calm and get the child to quickly connect with us, all of that body language is so important, really important. And what we know is, with kids, it's not just what we say, it's how we say it. It's not our words that mean more. It's our actions. Those are all so important to kids. Also proposing alternatives and offering choices to kids when they can be really upset about something in the moment. And we're holding a boundary, but if we can still, within that boundary, we're going to the car. “Would you like to hold my hand? Or would you like to walk by my side?” “Would you like me to carry you? Would you like to hold my hand?” Yeah, choices state what's happening, but then we offer a choice because it offers them an option to be in charge. 

Kristina  20:58

Goes back to what we were talking about in a previous episode where we talked about empathy, expectation, choice. “I know you'd really like to stay at the pool longer. We've had so much fun. It's time to go. You may hold my hand, or you may carry the bag,” or whatever the choice is that I'm willing to offer as we go to the car.

Heather  21:20

I said that incorrectly, it offers them initiative is what it offers them, the opportunity to grow that skill of initiative, right? And to say what's best for them. That's another piece that I love, “What's best for you you?” When you give a choice, that's a powerful thing for kids to be like, “Oh, what is best for me?” It's really good reflection thing for them. I like those words. I use them a lot at work, you give option A and you give option B. “What's best for you?”

Kristina  21:52

Yeah, it's another opportunity to have a little pause. 

Heather  21:56

The final thing, perhaps the most difficult: set a good example. As parents, we have to practice what we preach. 

Kristina  22:07

There’s a child that I worked with some time ago, and this is not unique to this particular child. This is something that we all experience. This child loved the color blue and always wanted the blue napkin when we were getting ready to have a meal or a snack. Well, the napkins were all different colors, but this child wanted the blue, always the blue. And I don't know if you have done this, Heather. I have done this, and it was from years working at an elementary school where we would say, “You get what you get and you don't throw a fit.” Yep, exactly. “You get what you get and you don't throw a fit.” They do throw a fit. They do when they don't get what they want. And we have a choice to either say, “Fine, I'm going to go find the blue napkin,” or I'm going to say to this other child, “Is it okay if I take that blue napkin and give it to the child who demands the blue napkin?” Or do I hold the boundary of you get what you get, and you don't throw off it, and saying, “I know you got the orange napkin. You were really hoping for the blue napkin. Today you have the orange.” 

Heather  23:12

“Oh I hear you. Wow. You are really upset about that. Yeah, you really hoped for the blue napkin today you have the orange and I know you can do it.” I know you can do it, right? Rinse and repeat, empathy and then the reminder that you can do it: “You've got this.” And allowing them to move through that upset to the point where they can say, “Okay, well, I guess if I want a snack, I mean, I'm using the orange napkin.” But, boy, is it tempting to just be, like, “ I'm just gonna get that blue napkin, because the screaming needs to end.” 

Heather  23:50

It’s like when we're in the store and there's a screaming child and it's ours, and they see all the food, and it's like, I am just gonna open this box of granola bars and put it in your face, like, eat it. Just make the crying stop. And then I know I'm gonna go to the store the next time, and I am going to be punished forever with the one granola bar that I let them put in their face hole. 

Kristina  24:30

Yep, in that moment, yep, because we ought to draw that back. Not just the granola bar in the face hole. It's also when we say “Here. Just have my phone. Yes, here. Just take my phone because I need you to stop the screaming.” We need to get this task completed, and that's my solution. Phone for you, quiet for me. Yay. We can move through the rest of our shopping.

Heather  24:50

In that moment, you just think, “Oh,

Kristina  24:53

Thank you.”

Heather  24:56

And then later we're like, “Oh,damn it.”

Kristina  24:57

Yes. I did that to myself.  I did that.

Heather  25:02

Yeah. In a weak moment. We all have them, we all do and it will happen, and we can draw it back. But it takes more work. The other thing that I want to talk about is following through with consequences is so important. Yeah, natural or logical? We know natural consequences are the better consequences. They're the ones that just you didn't wear your coat. No, you're gonna get cold, right? You don't want your mittens. Your hands are cold. And, I mean, those are no big deals. We navigate that all the time at school. It's like, you just put your mittens on, then we're not gonna get into these bitter battles over coats and mittens, because kids will very quickly learn, right? Oh, natural consequence. Now, my body's cold, my hands are cold, whatever.

Kristina  25:52

So I was raised that we weren't allowed to write on ourselves with marker or with pen or things like that. I think there was some belief that I had instilled in me that it was going to poison my blood, or something like, if I used pen to write on my hand. It was just something that was not acceptable in my family.

Heather  26:11

Growing up, we were always told ink was going to poison us, yeah.,

Kristina  26:15

Right.

Heather  26:16

It was an 80s thing. 

Kristina  26:18

Must have been 70s thing. I mean, it did. It started early. But that was kind of an ingrained belief I'd never challenged before. So my daughter started drawing on her hands and on her arms and on her legs, lots of creativity happening on her extremities. And I didn't like it, so I said to her, “You are not allowed to write on your body with ink or with markers,” and I may have even said it's not safe. I don't know if maybe I cause I did not like that. And maybe somewhere deep in my brain, I actually thought it would harm her. So she wasn't old enough to question that. She was maybe in second or third grade. And nope, she came home again and she had written all over herself. And I said, “Well, that's it. You lose tech time.” She said to me, second or third grader, she says, “Mom, that doesn't make any sense. Tech time has nothing to do with writing on my skin. How about you don't let me use pens anymore. Yeah, that is more logical, isn't it?”But the tech time is going to hurt more, and how can I possibly keep all of the pens away from my child? Yeah, it wasn't a great consequence, and it was humbling to have my little one call me out on it.

Heather  27:47

Well, I think it's an indicator that probably your consequences had been more solid up to that point.

Kristina  27:56

She's like, “Those don't even connect, Mom. Yeah, like up your game, woman.”

Heather  28:03

Then later, she's like, “It's okay, mom, your consequence sucked, but you were tired.”

Kristina  28:10

She is my child. Oozing empathy. Yep.

Heather  28:14

This is not easy. And this gets harder giving consequences. Yes, I think it gets harder when they get older, because I don't know why. To be honest, I don't know why. Maybe it's just always hard for me. I think it was harder as my kids got older. Maybe it's just what I remember best, but I distinctly remember that Zack was invited to go away with a friend for a weekend up north. He is an avid outdoorsman. He loves to hunt, fish, ride ATVs, all of it. And he was taking his quad. They were taking other machines, and they were going to go for this weekend. A family that we really love and spent a lot of time with and had their son over as well frequently, and I don't even remember. This is the thing. I don't even remember what he did. I have no// do you have any records?

Kristina  29:11

I know I don't.

Heather  29:12

All I know was that we had a conversation, and whatever he had done, the consequence was he couldn't go, I'm guessing, knowing who Zack is, and his disdain for school and all things school work related, was that he probably didn't finish something by a deadline, and that was just a requirement. I'm not asking you to love it, but, kid, we have got to get you through school. And you have to do some level of work. Yes, we expect your best, a good effort. I don't think we always got his best, because we didn't demand A's. Like, if he got a C, I was like, winning, and that was fine. And so I think it's probably he didn't meet a deadline.

Kristina  30:04

And you had stated the consequence. 

Heather  30:07

It had been voiced previously, because I wouldn't have gone to that unless I had previously stated it. So he made the choice to not do whatever it was, or to do whatever he wasn't supposed to I'm not sure, because I don't remember the exact scenario. All that I remember is sitting with him on his bed and saying, “You know that we cannot allow you to go. And he was like “Mom, but-“ and there was this upset. And I said, “I know. I know, honey. This is not easy for me. Do you think that I want to see you hurt and suffer and be miserable because you can't do this?” No. “Yeah. So no, I do feel awful. I wanted you to go, right? You would love that. Of course, I want you to go and experience that and have all of that fun. I didn't do this to you. Who did this to you?” I did. And those are the hard truths that we have to help them process through well, and “I did not do this to you, son.” Yes. “Who did this to you?” I did.

Kristina  31:25

I remember you calling me in the midst of that situation. 

Heather  31:30

Well, it was over. I had done it, and he knew he wasn't going and he took it. This is some of the power in it. He took it so beautifully. It almost made me feel guilty. Yes, because he was able to say,” I did do this.” Yep, of course, you have to enforce it. And I think we talked about this is a consequence of your actions. You don't get to be around here this weekend and be pissy and moody and unkind and angry to the people in this house and mope around. And he was like, “I will not” and you're gonna get whatever it was done and you're gonna do it, yeah, because it's the right thing to do.” I know. And he just took it so beautifully that I was like, “Oh, he's such a good kid. Should I let him go?

Kristina  32:27

No. No, you called me just like that, saying, “But he's, he's taken responsibility for it. He's owned it. I mean, it really would be so great if he could go up north. He was really looking forward to it. It's a great opportunity.” 

Heather  32:39

And I remember saying, “He's gonna have so much fun, and I know I can't let him go. And you were like, “You can't let him go.” And I was like, I know, just need to say it again.

Kristina  32:48

This is one of those times when you need to be able to call somebody in your village who can say, “I stand with you in holding this boundary. You're doing the right thing.”

Heather  32:56

You're doing the right thing is not easy. Nope. But it’s the lesson they need to learn. But I am here supporting you as you hold that boundary that kid is better off today as a twenty year old, because we did that work back then, right? Not easy. More responsible. A better problem solver. Better at getting his crap done

Kristina  33:21

All of it. And better at owning his own choices, right? “I'm not gonna blame you because of something that I chose.”

Heather  33:29

And he didn't put himself in a victim place, which I think as a parent, was what I celebrated so much. Make himself a victim. He owned it, which I was like, yes, but then I almost was willing to undo it all right? And I needed to call and say, we can't. I can't. Nope, you can't. Don't let me. Don't let me. Nope.

Kristina  33:54

That is a trap we fall into easily.

Heather  34:00

This is middle school. Real life.

Kristina  34:03

Holy crap. And if you have a child like mine, it was before middle school, during middle school and after middle school, because she's always thinking about what's ahead, very unaware of what's in her present or what's in her past. And so she forgets things a lot. 

Heather  34:19

And my oldest also attention and focus just took longer to grow and develop. And he needed all of those very real life experiences we always said “He's gonna have to try it and feel the consequence of it before he gets it,” because it's just how he learned. So going off to middle school was a real trick for him. It just requires more stuff, more independence, but also your water bottle, you have to have all of your different classes organized. He was not great at organizing that stuff. It was like, oh, the paper for history could be in the English folder, and the paper for math could be in the history folder. And undoubtedly, there were seventeen of them crumpled at the bottom underneath the folders. And where is my calculator, and where is this and where is that? And so I had to have the saying that we just lived into and became kind of our mantra as all of our kids moved through this phase, and that saying was “your lack of planning does not cause an emergency on my part.” That maybe sounds cruel. Oh, it's the cold hard truth, though. It is the cold hard truth, and it's the mantra that I needed in my head for my own reminder, because I would have been running here, there and everywhere to get this kid what he needed.

Kristina  36:04

But it happens for so many of us, right? Our child has invested time and energy and their soul into a project. Maybe it's a poster they had to make, or maybe it's something that they need for a presentation, or it could be anything the science fair when they've invested and worked on something and then they forget it.

Heather  36:30

Yes. And here's the thing that I want everybody to think about: if this is your child, you must let them develop the skills to get themselves out of these situations, because it is who they are. And my son had to do that, and he is wildly charming. Something I say in my house a lot is, don't you dare use your smolder on your mother. Smolders don't work on mothers. No, they don't. I grew you in my body, your smolder is rendered ineffective. But you know what? It's very common for children with dyslexia and ADHD, they develop wicked good people skills because they have to, right? Because they do so many of those types of just “I don't have this” or “I'm not prepared for this” up that they have to get charming, they have to be witty, they have to be likable, or they would not make it through school. And that was my son.

Kristina  37:35

So my recommendation for parents, because so many of us experience this is the first time your child forgets their whatever science project, water bottle, headphones, lunch, money, whatever it might be that the first time, if at all possible, you bring the item to them. And that is then when you establish the boundary of “you need to have what you need to have to leave the house in the morning. I will not be making runs to bring you things.” Now, establishing the boundary is not enough. You also have to work with your child to come up with a system that is going to help them until they build the skill to remember those things on their own. What is the double-checking system that you have everything you need before you leave the door? Is it a list that we make the night before and we tape to the door, nice little visual that we check it off before we leave? Do we have a little dry erase board? We used lots of dry erase boards with Grace growing up, and still do to some extent. There's a little dry erase board that's right by the door that we will be heading out of, and it lists the things we need so like at our preschools, before we leave our playscapes with the children to go on a hike, we have a hike checklist where we say, Does every teacher have their walkie talkie? Yes. Check, do we have the first aid kit? Check. Do I have my backpack as the teacher? Check. So you have that checklist before you leave the home of the items that you need. And each day, especially in the beginning, you do that checklist with your child, if that's what's going to work for them. It could also be that you prepare those items with your child that need to go with you in an area. They're all here. We're not searching for them in the morning. We don't have to remember that. Today's the day I need to bring my gym shoes, because we already have your gym shoes sitting by your things to leave.

Heather  39:50

So really, it's about having processes in place that work for you and your child and your family, and it's about not rescuing them. Yeah. Every time and allowing them to develop their problem-solving skills. I used to say to my kids, “You get one time,” preventatively, like, “I'll bring something to school one time. You get to decide what it is. If it's that homework that's due, if it's that permission slip, if it's your lunch, whatever, but you better choose carefully what that one thing is, because I'm going to do it one time.”

Kristina  40:22

You can bet that the homework that they didn't bring in is not what they're going to know one time.

Heather  40:27

It was somebody's homework, and I forget what the consequence was if that didn't get turned in, but there was a domino effect, and so they used it wisely. But I never got called for lunches. I never got I guess they can survive without food and water, or they charmed somebody for some others, but I did get called once for homework,

Kristina  40:47

And if your child continues to call home because they continue to forget things, it just means that you need to come up with a different system, that whatever the system you came up with is not sufficient. It's not working. And doing that work with the child even better.

Heather  41:04

And apparently this happens a lot. I remember emails, and I remember the one time I brought that stuff in, there was like a drop off zone for, like, lunches and water bottles. And I'm thinking, “Oh, I might be a cold hearted human.”

Kristina  41:23

Yeah so you saw that this is happening on the regular for all of us, that our children are forgetting things, and that too often we feel that we need to rescue them. What will they do if they don't have their lunch?

Heather  41:36

What will they do? Come home hungry? Not the worst thing. Eat a better dinner.

Kristina  41:43

Yeah, not the worst thing, no.

Heather  41:44

And that's kind of I've been this parent who annoyingly will sometimes say, “What's the worst that could happen?” What's the worst that could happen? Because we have to check ourselves on that. If they don't have their lunch, what's the worst that could happen? They come home hungry. They come home a little dehydrated. If they don't have their water, well, there are  drinking fountains there.

Kristina  42:08

I mean, yep. Get yourself a drink if you are thirsty. But maybe you won't forget it tomorrow. Or maybe if remembering things is a challenge for you, we'll come up with a difference.

Heather  42:20

Certainly if we don't stretch them to do better, they won't. And that's the piece of the scaffolded skill building we want to grow them into the best versions of themselves. And I knew that if I rescued it wasn't going to end well for my son, and that he had to be able to get to a point where he could figure it out, and then he got to be such a good problem solver.

Kristina  42:53

Paying attention to your own child's skill development. What's the trajectory? What's the timeline? Grace, when she was in fifth grade, her teaching team just decided they were going to have these milk crates located outside the Spanish room, where if they found any of Grace's things, they just put them in the milk crates, and then it was Grace's responsibility to take them from the milk crates and get them either to her locker or get them home, because at that point, she did not yet have the ability to keep track of all of the things. Well, I can tell you, we don't have milk crates anymore. She's able to keep track of her things at school. She has built those skills. But at the time when you think, Oh for crying out loud, a fourth grader, never gonna get there. We're never going to get there. And a fifth grader should be able to hang on to these things to say, “No, Grace isn't able to do that yet. We're growing her ability to do it, but she can't do it yet, and that's okay.” 

Heather  43:57

Yeah, it is okay. And it's part of the growing. So setting boundaries for our children is one of the most important aspects of parenting. So much goes into it and so much comes out of it.

Kristina  44:14

It's really setting them up for success as they experience the ability to meet expectations to manage the disappointment and the frustration when they don't. Knowing their limits and having that be predictable sets them up to feel safe and secure.

Heather  44:33

And to be able to go on and manage in the real world alongside of others.

Kristina  44:42

Thank you so much for joining us for Gear up! Adventures In Parenthood. I'm Kristina.

Heather  44:48

And I'm Heather. And we're so grateful to join you on your parenting journey. Until

Kristina  44:53

Until next time 

Heather and Kristina

See you on the trails!

Kristina

The Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood podcast is brought to you by the ODC Network in Holland, Michigan. It is produced by Jen Plante Johnson, recorded and edited by Dave Purnell, with original theme music by Dave Purnell.

Heather  45:10

The ODC Network is a non-profit organization that strives to advance outdoor education and conservation in West Michigan. 

Kristina  45:18

Since 2000 the ODC Network has served over a million people through hands on outdoor learning experiences and conserved thousands of acres of native habitat through restoration and preservation projects. 

Heather  45:30

The ODC Network's vision is building a better community by connecting people land and nature. To learn more and get involved, go to www.ODCNetwork.org.